"A simple rule of robotic personality seems to
be: donât make things the most efficient way,"
said Magnus Wurzer, who has been running the
Vienna-based Roboexotica, a festival where
scientists have gone to build, showcase and
discuss "cocktail robots" since 1999.
One entry, Beerbot, detects approaching people
and asks for beer money. When it acquires enough,
it "buys" itself a beer. Bystanders can watch it
flow into a transparent bladder. As for other
humanizing behaviors, "like a robot that
doesnât stop short at lighting a cigarette but
actually goes ahead and smokes it?" Mr. Wurzer says, "We had that.
Roboexotica has inspired a stateside version as
well, which just had its third annual celebration in San Francisco.
And in at least one case in Europe, a robot
actually got behind a bar. From 1999 to 2002, a
scarlet-eyed metal robot named Cynthia poured
drinks at Cynthia's Bridge Bar and Lounge in
London. But according to Mr. Wurzer, "she was too
costly to maintain once the bar was sold by the robot's maker."
<http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/24/dining/24robots.html>Link
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